Volunteer Aid Restores Seniors Food Delivery

March 20, 1988|By Ines Davis Parrish of The Sentinel Staff

SANFORD — Volunteers will deliver cheese and butter to the elderly residents of Redding Gardens apartments, who were worried they would have less to eat after the Salvation Army cut the home delivery service.

Mary Corbin and Bill Kearnes called the Salvation Army of Seminole County to volunteer their services after seeing an article in The Orlando Sentinel's Seminole section Wednesday about the residents.

Most residents of the 100-unit apartment complex at Locust Avenue and Fifth Street live on Social Security incomes of $300 to $580 a month. Many are homebound, crippled or without their own transportation.

Lt. Sam Flanigan of the Salvation Army ended the delivery program for the 70 recipients because he said there were too many problems. He told the residents they would have to find a way to the Salvation Army's office at 700 W. 24th St. to fill out forms for eligibility and to pick up the food.

The Salvation Army distributes the surplus commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, such as cheese, butter, rice, honey and powdered milk, to poor families every other month.

The residents said they could not get to the Salvation Army office or stand in line for hours to pick up the food.

Corbin, a computer programmer with Baxter Healthcare Corp. in Longwood, said she will help residents fill out the eligibility forms Saturday at the complex's office. She said she has never worked with the Salvation Army's program, but decided to help after learning of the residents' plight.

Kearnes, a medical social worker with Norrell Home Health Services in Sanford, said he works with some of the residents. He said he would deliver the food to the complex if someone donates use of a truck.

He said he is trying to stimulate more volunteerism to help Sanford's elderly black population.

''There's a real lack of willing volunteers to work in the black community,'' he said.

Flanigan said the Visiting Nurse Association also said it will arrange home delivery of food for the six homebound clients at Redding Gardens it works with.

He said any other residents who need the food delivered to their apartments can call his office and he will arrange help through the Visiting Nurse Association.

Flanigan said the new arrangements will be satisfactory because there are ''the checks and balances that weren't there before.''

Two Redding Gardens residents were providing the delivery service when Flanigan ended it.

Although Flanigan said there were complaints that residents were not getting their food, both of the women running the program said that never happened. One of the women, Doris Johnson, said the residents were complaining about small things, such as having to sign papers.

The two women would arrange for a driver, who was paid out of donations from the residents, to pick up the food and bring it to the complex office. Residents would walk to the office to pick up their share of food and sign papers showing they had their food.

Paying to have food delivered is improper, according to state officials who administer the program statewide. But the residents said they would rather pay for delivery than pay more for transportation and have to wait in long lines at the Salvation Army.